United States
Casa de Salud: The New Mexican Connection: Elyce Tryon
St. Anthony’s joins with an established family medical center to set up a pharmacy and lab in Albuquerque, NM.
Casa de Salud serves over 9000 patients each year, providing comprehensive women’s health, nutritional counseling, and harm reduction services for injection drug users, as well as many other community services.
St. Anthony’s Alliance is excited to begin its first relationship with a clinic in New Mexico! Recognizing the importance of building strong ties in the immediate community, St. Anthony’s has offered a grant to Casa de Salud to set up pharmacy and lab funds for the 2009 upcoming year.
Casa de Salud Family Medical Office (formerly known as Topahkal), founded in 2004, combines conventional and traditional medical practices to meet the spiritual and physical needs of patients. Located in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Casa de Salud provides affordable medical services to anyone in need, although the majority of the patients are low-income and mono-lingual Spanish speakers. No one is ever turned away for lack of funds. Casa de Salud is a patient centered and patient supported clinic, relying mostly on patient financial support and some small private donations to keep the clinic running.
In addition to serving patients, Casa de Salud mentors work- study and volunteer students, and community members who are aspiring to a career in medicine or who simply want to help their community. Students and community members work together to receive patients, assist in medical procedures, draw labs, schedule appointments and carry out harm reduction services for injection drug users. Students and community volunteers truly play an integral role in the ongoing success of the clinic.
With the help of patients and the community, Casa de Salud has been able to expand its services over the last few years. The clinic now offers Acute Detox services for heroin users seeking treatment, full-body acupuncture treatments, prenatal care, comprehensive women’s health, herbal consultations, and nutritional counseling.
As a student volunteer at Casa de Salud, I have seen first-hand the ability of a small clinic to make a huge impact in a community. With our current medical system plagued with excessive costs, Casa de Salud has been able to protect patients unable to receive health care by providing the highest quality health services at a fair price. St. Anthony’s is looking forward to a growing relationship with the clinic over the coming years.
